This episode originally aired in 2005.

In his stunning first novel, Edward P. Jones created a whole world based on what he called a historical footnote: that in the 19th century there were freed American slaves who themselves became slave owners. Even more surprising: Jones imagined and carried the story in his head for almost a decade.

It wasn’t until he was fired from his longtime job at an accounting magazine that he sat down to write the novel. Ambitious and courageous, The known world won a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Critics Circle Award and the IMPAC Dublin International Literary Prize.

Jones was born in 1950 in Washington, DC, and was raised by an illiterate single mother who worked as a dishwasher and housekeeper, moving 18 times in as many years. It was after winning a college scholarship that he started writing fiction. Her first storybook lost in the city, won the Pen Hemingway Prize. Jones was also awarded the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship.

Jones spoke to Eleanor Wachtel from the CBC’s Washington studio in 2005.

years of training

“We moved around a lot. We lived in about 18 different places by the time I was 18, and I guess that affected me. We would move to somewhere that seemed to be nice – even if it was a trap. rats – and they would try to prettify the new people and you don’t realize how bad it is until you live there for several months.

“My mother worked hard and I have a good appreciation for what she went through. As a woman who couldn’t read or write, in a world that demands you be able to read and write, I’m starting to realize that my mother must have suffered 1,001 indignities every day.

As a woman who couldn’t read or write, in a world that requires you to be able to read and write, I’m beginning to realize that my mother had to endure 1,001 indignities every day.

“I was not aware of what was going on in her life in the working world. But in the neighborhood where we lived, what people knew was that she was respected. There was no so no problem that she can’t read and write.

“It was never brought up, I guess.”

The compulsion to write

“I have what I’ve come to call this compulsion to write – you write because you have to. When I went to college in 1968, what I discovered was that the he idea that people had of Washington was rather narrow.

“It was at university that I discovered the music of James Joyce Dubliners and I was rather impressed with what he had done there. I don’t know why Dublin is famous. There’s probably nothing like what Washington is famous for, which is politics and government.

I have what I’ve come to call this compulsion to write – you write because you have to.

“I think one of the reasons I decided to write these stories is just to give people an idea that Washington is also a city of neighborhoods – and people who have families and do the same things. than in other American cities.

“I guess the characters are lost because that’s just my way of looking at life. I’m not a very positive person. Someone said that the stories in lost in the city are pretty negative, but I think a lot of people come to a pretty good ending. I don’t think that applies to anything I’ve written. I think that’s just how I view life.

“I can’t help but write characters who see life the same way.”

Rooted in the South

“Most of the adults I knew growing up were born and raised in the South.

“It was a kick to read works by black and white writers from the South and to find that I knew this world very well. I had the same kick when I first read native sonwhich takes place in Chicago.

“I was fascinated that all the people in the book were the kind of people I knew in Washington. I think when that happens, the world expands for you. You’re not just that little person in a place who has only experienced one thing that no one else in the universe has ever experienced.

You become a citizen of the universe once you read the work of others – and see that whatever you’ve been through, someone else has been through it.”

“You become a citizen of the universe once you read the work of others – and see that whatever you’ve been through, someone else has been through.”

Start from an image

“All I knew was that I wanted to write a story that someone else hadn’t written. Somewhere along the way, I remembered this thing that I had heard at the university – that there had been black slave owners. I guess after finishing lost in the cityI started remembering it and found that I might want to write something.

“I had to create a world first. The first character I ever imagined was probably black slave owner Henry Townsend, who is dying.

“I started adding more and more to the story. I had no idea who Henry Townsend really was, because he was an infinity in my brain.

All I knew was that I wanted to write a story that someone else hadn’t written. Somewhere along the way, I remembered that thing I had heard in college – that there had been black slave owners.

“Over time, I had to grow that person and understand the person I was writing about. It was a long process. He didn’t start fully formed.”

Edward P. Jones’ comments have been edited for length and clarity.